Insurance, Latvia, Markets and Companies, Medicine
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Wednesday, 17.04.2024, 21:37
Competition Council finds systemic problems in distribution of reimbursed medicines in Latvia
According
to a survey carried out this past spring, 87% of residents experienced
difficulties with obtaining reimbursed medicines. This, together with other
conclusions made by the Competition Council, proves that availability of
reimbursed medicines to residents is impaired in Latvia.
According
to the Competition Council, four largest wholesalers of medicines control 83%
of the market, which poses risks to competition.
The
Competition Council has found that pharmaceutical companies have trouble with
planning the amounts of medicines they have to supply due to limited
information about the actual demand for a medicine in Latvia, as well as due to
wholesalers' stocks of medicines and export volumes. As a result, supervisory
authorities cannot effectively ensure that pharmacies are supplied medicines
and no drugstores are discriminated against.
According
to the Competition Council, there are frequent shortages of reimbursed
medicines at pharmacies, and the main reason is wholesalers' insufficient
stocks. This means that wholesalers have to increase their stocks of reimbursed
medicines to ensure that they are available to all consumers.
The Competition
Council has also concluded that vertical integration of wholesalers and
retailers of medicines give some wholesalers an advantage over other
wholesalers as they can sign individual contracts with pharmaceutical
companies. As a result, such wholesalers may give preference to their
pharmacies when distributing reimbursed drugs among pharmacies.
In
addition, some wholesalers are offered discounts on medicines they buy from
pharmaceutical companies, but pharmacies sell these medicines at full prices,
which means higher profits for wholesalers - at the expense of consumers. The
Competition Council believes it is absolutely unacceptable that medicines,
which are paid for by the state, are used as a source of profit by some of the
wholesalers, and this is a problem that needs to be addressed.
The
Competition Council proposes setting up a register of wholesalers and
pharmacies through which they would inform the authorities about their stocks
of medicines.